Week 31 - Back at the Desk

Its been a little while (again) since I was able to get some painting done, but I have another commission so I needed to clear a path to get some work done. I have another 10 circle models on the books to complete so they have had a bit of attention the last couple days. I also got the last couple details on my Dreadball Xtreme Ada-Lorana team. These guys were pretty easy since they were cast in transparent blue, I tried to accent the transparency while also not letting them look too flat. I tried anyway...

I'm hoping to get the commission wrapped up in a couple weeks but that depends a lot on life. I just unloaded a pile of models on Trademe, including almost all of my Undead and a lot of my Robotech. I've just about emptied my big box of sprues now, which means I can gather up some of the other boxed items to cram in there. I should be able to start moving freely through my work-space soon! It has been a long time since that was ever possible. I've also fallen behind on my target again, hopefully it wont take too much to get back on track.

Day 214
209/214 Painted/Days passed
Goals:
Commission models - 10
Finish painting Infinity Morats - 11/11
Paint all DZC Scourge - 36/46
Paint Xtreme Ada-Lorana - 9/9
Paint all Directorate - 44/44
Finish all of the Dreadball teams and MVPs. - 4/4
Build and paint remaining KOW Elves - 68/83
Paint all Toxic zombies - 14/37
Paint all Berserk zombies - 0/37
Build and paint a full Malifaux crew - 12/16

July 2015 Loot Crate

The July 2015 Loot Crate theme was "Heroes 2" and cost $29.99 USD. (about $45 with the exchange rate as it is.)

The contents this month:
Q-pop Batman (with exclusive word bubble)
Regrettable Super Heroes book (with exclusive cover)
Batman multi-tool keychain
Brawlhalla download card
Legend of Zelda wristband
Wonder Woman mini poster
Star Trek air freshener
Looter mag and pin

This month is another paper heavy month but it makes up for it with some pretty cool items. The Q-Pop figure is awesome and the box doubles as a building for him to stand on.

The other physical items are the keychain, wristband and air freshener, these are okay items, the keychain is pretty big so probably more something you keep at home. I'm not sure how many people wear just one wristband but it is nice. I have another from a previous block so at least I have two. The air freshener is what it is.

The paper and digital items are pretty cool though. The poster is pretty cool and the Brawlhalla code gets you a character and some skins for it (the game is free too!) The other big item in the crate is the Regrettable Heroes book. This is pretty nice and I look forward to reading it.

So this crate felt kinda similar to the first heroes crate, it missed the mark for me a little bit. I feel like it is too hard to cover heroes from many different genres in one go (Marvel didn't make an appearance at all...) On the other hand the last villains crate was one of my favourites. I'm happy with the crate overall, the major items are all good, it was the minor items that could have been better in my opinion. The value is there from just the book and Batman figure so no real loss.

As I predicted, next months theme is Villains 2. I look forward to it!

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July 2015 Japan Crate

This crate is a bit different from the others in that it is a food crate. It was a 'premium' crate and came with 12 different Japanese snacks for $45 USD. The wife and I had looked at this a couple times and were both really keen to try it out, just once.

The items were:

• Chameleon candy - Hard candies that all start off the same colour (and flavour) but change after sucking for a little while. Each only changes once and the flavours were pretty nice.
• Potekoro cubes - A bit like little croutons, with a subtle black pepper flavour. I would quite happily have them again, could have used a bigger pack really.
• Chu grape jelly - Its jelly in a plastic tube, jelly on the go! Nothing spectacular or different but it would be a convenient snack.
• Maken gummy - A single gummy sweet in a hand shape of either paper, scissors or rock. Tasty but not unlike a large gummy bear.
• Animal drawing sherbet DIY - A DIY candy pack, we haven't had time to try this one yet. Not exactly an on-the-go snack, needs a freezer. The DIY concept would be fun to do with the kids though.
• Lifeguard paste - 'Lifeguard' is a drink in Japan, this is a thick paste of the same flavour. Was quite nice if a bit difficult to get out of the package.
• Adzuki mizu yokan - A red bean snack. Neither of us liked this one.
• Choco bar Z kinako - A wafer stick coated in soy chocolate. This was quite nice, a bit like a churro covered in a blend of peanut butter and chocolate.
• Kids beer - This drink tastes a lot like creaming soda but looks like beer, yellowy-brown with a foam head. Too sweet for me but the wife liked it.
• Corn potage chips - These corn puffs are like munchos but in sweetcorn soup flavour. These were the favorite item in the box, everyone who tried one couldn't place the flavour at first. It does actually taste a lot like corn soup though, unlike 'chicken chips' for example.
• Kajiri chew - Cola taffy wrapped around lemon taffy. Nice but not a strong flavour.
• Sour lemon gum - Not as sour as the pack claims but more so than your average sour candy. I'm not a fan of gum myself but the flavour lasted a long time so it wasn't so bad.

There were some very nice snacks in this crate but not many were 'out there' like we were expecting. Better than american candy but not too dissimilar than our own. Only one we didn't like which wasn't too bad. Overall we were pretty happy with this crate. Definitely worth a try if you are curious but this isn't an awesome value deal, equivalent local items would cost you around $2-3 each, these cost on average $6 each. I will definitely be having a look at the local Asian supermarkets though to see what they have available!